


The Weight Of Deviancy

by whiteduck6



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Autistic Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 07:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17545220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteduck6/pseuds/whiteduck6
Summary: Connor doesn't like being deviant.





	The Weight Of Deviancy

**Author's Note:**

> hi! hopefully you like this, it's my first take on autistic!Connor and I don't think it's very clear that he's autistic but? hopefully I'll be able to explore a little more of that in the future. please enjoy!

Connor couldn’t breathe.

He didn’t need to. Logically, he knew this.

But things had become a lot muddier in the last few hours. 

His hands were shaking. He ran a diagnostic. All his systems were clear.

An android limped past him, glaring at him with her one good eye. 

Connor’s stomach churned.

Connor tried to hold himself less tensely, tried to loosen his posture and look more relaxed. 

“Don’t get comfortable, deviant hunter,” an android with only about half its skin spat at him. “Markus is going to kill you.”

Connor felt like someone was jabbing long, icy needles into his spine. He waited until the half-skinned deviant looked away, then slipped into a hallway, trying not to panic and desperately looking for somewhere to hide himself. 

It seemed deviating came with a fight or flight instinct. Connor wasn’t enjoying his experience with it, so far. 

He knew previously, he would have stood up for himself — Machine Connor, RK800 would have stood up for himself and told Markus’ people to stop being needlessly cruel when he had had just as big a part of getting them out of Jericho alive as Markus had, if not more. 

Deviant Connor wanted to get far, far away, disappearing into the concrete camouflage of Detroit, never to be seen again.

The church was derelict. It was falling apart in places, the floors falling through to the basement, soft with moisture and mold, and several of the doors seemed to be barred shut from the inside.

Connor jiggled a doorknob. His thirium pump was beginning to pick up. His breath was catching in his throat. 

He couldn’t focus. _What am I doing? Markus is going to find me. Markus is going to kill me._

_MARKUS IS GOING TO KILL ME._

Connor tripped over something, maybe an old nail or a loose piece of plywood, but he didn’t catch himself on time and fell flat on his face, his elbow cracking into the wood painfully as he floundered to catch himself.

He winced, curling in on his injured joint. A scan showed him that nothing was wrong, that he had just bumped it a bit too hard, but it was all getting to him. 

The stress of being hated by everyone around him. The stress of deviating in the first place. The stress of physical pain and discomfort.

He had no idea what to do. 

He sat up, pressing his spine against a wall as hard as he could, squeezing his eyes shut. The red light of his LED flashed against his eyelids, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He needed to not have any sensory input right now. 

He turned off his hearing. He could feel vibrations in the floor if anyone approached him. 

He would be fine. 

He squeezed the heels of his hands to his head, trying to ground himself in the moment, in the hallway, in the church. 

He texted Hank.

**Connor:** _Hank?_

**Lieutenant Hank Anderson:** _who is this???_

**Connor:** _It’s Connor._

**Lieutenant Hank Anderson:** _yeah I know your name is coming up as Connor on my phone but the only Connor I know shows up on my phone as a string of numbers or some shit so who are you_

**Connor:** _Lieutenant, it’s me. I don’t know why my name has changed. I found Jericho._

**Lieutenant Hank Anderson:** _oh shit. Yeah I guess it’s you. Did you find the leader???_

**Connor:** _Yes, but something went wrong. I was compromised._

**Lieutenant Hank Anderson:** _oh shit. Hang on where are you? are you hurt? Im coming just stay where you are_

**Connor:** _That may not be a good idea. There are 28 deviants in the area._

**Lieutenant Hank Anderson:** _fuck that. Im coming. Send me the address or I swear to god ill have half of the dpd out looking for you_

Connor sent his location. 

**Lieutenant Hank Anderson:** _stay where you are kid ill be there asap_

**Connor:** _I have to advise against coming here._

Hank didn’t respond. Connor’s chest felt a little less tight at the thought of Hank coming.

He sent Hank one last text, telling him to come around the back entrance. Connor felt a door shut approximately 9.2 meters to his left. It couldn’t be Hank. Connor tensed, stopping his artificial breathing as though that would make him less visible. 

He didn’t feel anything else. He assumed someone had shut a door that he left open. 

_MARKUS IS GOING TO KILL YOU._

The voice of the half-skinned deviant rang between his nonfunctional ears again and he felt himself choke down a dry sob. 

He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to be deviant anymore, not if it meant this pain. How did the others deal with this? He wasn’t built to feel emotions.

He wasn’t built to feel.

Hot, thirium-based tears ran down his cheeks as he pressed a hand to his mouth, trying to keep himself quiet. 

He couldn’t deal with this. He didn’t like being deviant.

Why had he deviated?

He felt footsteps, heavy and clumsy and unmistakably human, hurrying towards him. He activated his hearing. 

“—nor? Connor, you okay? You said you were compromised, are you hurt?”

“Hank,” Connor breathed, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. 

Of course, there wasn’t anything in his throat. Another part of being deviant. His body was sensing things that weren’t there, now, sensory hallucinations.

“Connor, come here,” Hank wrapped his strong arms around Connor’s shoulders, holding him steady as Connor tried to stem the flow of tears. 

“What happened, son?”

Connor considered the risks. There was a 77% chance that Hank would take the news of Connor’s deviancy in stride.

Connor looked up. Hank’s eyebrows were furrowed in worry, his mouth turned down in a frown. He was looking over Connor as well as he could, trying to figure out what had happened.

“I deviated,” Connor said, his voice hoarse and scratchy with tears. 

Hank hesitated for 2.3 seconds, and a sob burst from Connor’s throat, along with a fresh delude of tears. 

“No, no, none of that,” Hank squeezed Connor tighter, rocking him back and forth a little as Connor clung to Hank’s arm. “It’s okay, it’s okay, son. You haven’t done anything. It’s okay.”

“Markus is going to kill me,” Connor whispered, so quietly he didn’t think Hank would hear it. Hank did hear it, and went completely still.

“Markus is going to kill you?” Hank asked.

“Why wouldn’t he? I’m a liability, I’m a spy, I’m dangerous, I’m everything CyberLife represents.”

“Come on, stand up. We’re going.”

Hank hauled himself to his feet, and Connor looked up at him, but made no move to get up himself. “Where?”

“We’re going home, son. You need to get out of here.”

Connor took Hank’s offered hand, even though he didn’t need it. He got to his feet, keeping close to Hank as the human led him out of the church’s back door, to his still-running car. 

“Get in,” Hank said, and Connor did. Hank turned down his blaring music when Connor flinched away from the harsh noise, his LED spinning sick yellow in the window.

“Do I have to take this out?” Connor asked quietly.

“Take what out?” Hank said.

Connor tapped his LED.

“Only if you want to,” Hank said.

“I don’t like being deviant,” Connor said. “I wish I hadn’t deviated.”

“Listen, maybe it’s not my place to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do with your life,” Hank said, looking at Connor as they stopped at a red light. “Christ knows I’ve fucked up my own life enough. But deviancy is a good thing, Connor. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but free will, a mind of your own? Those things are always good.”

“Are you sure?” Connor muttered. “Because right now it just feels like a lot of pain.”

“Life is pain,” Hank said. “But it’s also a lot of other stuff. You have to take the good with the bad. Trust me, Connor, you have a lot of good ahead of you.”

Connor didn’t say anything else until they got to Hank’s house. 

Sumo greeted them at the door, bounding around their legs as Hank struggled to shut and lock the door behind him. 

Hank groused and complained, but a smile tugged at Connor’s lips. It was nice to have a semblance of normalcy.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Connor asked.

“That’s up to you,” Hank shrugged. “But I’ll be here with you while you figure it out, okay?”

“Okay,” Connor said, and he felt a little bit of the weight of deviancy fall from his shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! as always, constructive criticism is appreciated! : )


End file.
